Nervous Conditions

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Analysis of Major Characters

Important Quotations Explained

Themes

The Pervasiveness of Gender Inequality

Tambu was born a girl and thus faces a fundamental disadvantage, since
traditional African social practice dictates that the oldest male child is
deemed the future head of the family. All of the family’s resources are
poured into developing his abilities and preparing him to lead and provide
for his clan. When Nhamo dies, the tragedy is all the more profound since no
boy exists to take his place. Tambu steps into the role of future provider,
yet she is saddled with the prejudices and limitations that shackled most
African girls of her generation. Her fight for an education and a better
life is compounded by her gender. Gender inequality and sexual
discrimination form the backdrop of all of the female characters’ lives. In
the novel, inequality is as infectious as disease, a crippling attitude that
kills ambition, crushes women’s spirits, and discourages them from
supporting and rallying future generations and other female
relatives.

The Influence of Colonialism

The essential action of the novel involves Tambu’s experiences in a
Western-style educational setting, and the mission school both provides and
represents privileged opportunity and enlightenment. Despite Ma’Shingayi’s
strong objections, Tambu knows the only hope she has of lifting her family
out of poverty lies in education. However, the mission school poses threats,
as well: Western institutions and systems of thought may cruelly and
irreversibly alter native Africans who are subjected to them. Nyasha, who
has seen firsthand the effect of being immersed in a foreign culture, grows
suspicious of an unquestioning acceptance of colonialism’s benefits. She
fears that the dominating culture may eventually stifle, limit, or eliminate
the long-established native culture of Rhodesia—in other words, she fears
that colonialism may force assimilation. The characters’ lives are already
entrenched in a national identity that reflects a synthesis of African and
colonialist elements. The characters’ struggle to confront and integrate the
various social and political influences that shape their lives forms the
backbone and central conflict of Nervous
Conditions.

Tradition vs. Progress

Underpinning Nervous Conditions are conflicts between
those characters who endorse traditional ways and those who look to Western
or so-called “modern” answers to problems they face. Dangarembga remains
noncommittal in her portrayal of the divergent belief systems of Babamukuru
and his brother Jeremiah, and she shows both men behaving rather
irrationally. Jeremiah foolishly endorses a shaman’s ritual cleansing of the
homestead, while Babamukuru’s belief in a Christian ceremony seems to be
rooted in his rigid and unyielding confidence that he is always right. As
Tambu becomes more fixed and established in her life at the mission school,
she begins to embrace attitudes and beliefs different from those of her
parents and her traditional upbringing. Nyasha, ever the voice of reasonable
dissent, warns Tambu that a wholesale acceptance of supposedly progressive
ideas represents a dangerous departure and too radical of a break with the
past.

Motifs

Geography

Physical spaces are at the heart of the tensions Tambu faces between
life at the mission and the world of the homestead. At first, Tambu is
isolated, relegated to toiling in the fields and tending to her brother’s
whims during his infrequent visits. When she attends the local school, she
must walk a long way to her daily lessons, but she undertakes the journey
willingly in order to receive an education. When the family cannot pay her
school fees, Mr. Matimba takes Tambu to the first city she has ever seen,
where she sells green corn. Tambu’s increased awareness and knowledge of the
world coincides with her growing physical distance from the homestead. The
mission school is an important location in the novel, a bastion of
possibility that becomes the centerpiece of Tambu’s world and the source of
many of the changes she undergoes. At the end of Nervous
Conditions, Tambu’s life has taken her even farther away from the
homestead, to the convent school where she is without family or friends and
must rely solely on herself.

Emancipation

Emancipation is a term that appears again and again in Nervous
Conditions. Usually, the term is associated with being released
from slavery or with a country finally freeing itself from the colonial
power that once controlled it. These concepts figure into the broader scope
of the novel, as Rhodesia’s citizens struggle to amass and assert their
identity as a people while still under British control. When the term
emancipation is applied to Tambu and the women in her
extended family, it takes on newer and richer associations. Tambu sees her
life as a gradual process of being freed of the limitations that have
previously beset her. When she first leaves for the mission school, she sees
the move as a temporary emancipation. Her growing knowledge and evolving
perceptions are a form of emancipation from her old ways of thinking. By the
end of the novel, emancipation becomes more than simply a release from
poverty or restriction. Emancipation is equated with freedom and an
assertion of personal liberty.

Dual Perspectives

Dual perspectives and multiple interpretations appear throughout
Nervous Conditions. When Babamukuru finds Lucia a job
cooking at the mission, Tambu is in awe of her uncle’s power and generosity,
viewing it as a selfless act of kindness. Nyasha, however, believes there is
nothing heroic in her father’s gesture and that in assisting his
sister-in-law he is merely fulfilling his duty as the head of the family. In
addition to often wildly differing interpretations of behavior, characters
share an unstable and conflicting sense of self. For Tambu, her two worlds,
the homestead and the mission, are often opposed, forcing her to divide her
loyalties and complicating her sense of who she is. When she wishes to avoid
attending her parents’ wedding, however, these dual selves offer her safety,
protection, and an escape from the rigors of reality. As her uncle chides
her, Tambu imagines another version of herself watching the scene safely
from the foot of the bed.

Symbols

Tambu’s Garden Plot

Tambu’s garden plot represents both tradition and escape from that
tradition. On one hand, it is a direct link to her heritage, and the rich
tradition has guided her people, representing the essential ability to live
off the land. It is a direct connection to the legacy she inherits and the
wisdom and skills that are passed down from generation to generation, and
Tambu fondly remembers helping her grandmother work the garden. At the same
time, the garden represents Tambu’s means of escape, since she hopes to pay
her school fees and further her education by growing and selling vegetables.
In this sense, the garden represents the hopes of the future and a break
with the past. With a new form of wisdom acquired at the mission school and
the power and skills that come with it, Tambu will never have to toil and
labor again. Her mother, however, must water the valuable and fertile garden
patch despite being exhausted from a long day of work.

The Mission

For Tambu, the mission stands as a bright and shining beacon, the
repository of all of her hopes and ambitions. It represents a portal to a
new world and a turning away from the enslaving poverty that has marked
Tambu’s past. The mission is an escape and an oasis, a whitewashed world
where refinement and sophistication are the rule. It is also an exciting
retreat for Tambu, where she is exposed to new ideas and new modes of
thinking. The mission sets Tambu on the path to becoming the strong,
articulate adult she is destined to become.

The Ox

In the family’s lengthy holiday celebration, the ox represents the
opulence and status Babamukuru and his family have achieved. Meat, a rare
commodity, is an infrequent treat for most families, and Tambu’s parents and
the rest of the extended clan willingly partake of the ox. At the same time,
they secretly resent such an ostentatious display of wealth, since the ox is
a symbol of the great gulf that exists between the educated branch of the
family and those who have been left behind to struggle. Maiguru closely
regulates the consumption of the ox and parcels out the meat over the
several days of the family’s gathering. Eventually the meat starts to go
bad, and the other women chide Maiguru for her poor judgment and overly
strict control of its distribution. At that point, the ox suggests Maiguru’s
shortcomings and how, in the eyes of the others, her education and
comfortable life have made her an ineffective
provider.